How can I use the Internet to support my teaching and students' learning?

Because I teach ELA I us the Internet on a regular basis to support my teaching and student learning. My students do research on the Internet, they check homework assignments on my Lex Connect page, and they do web quests which I create. I do mini lessons to teach my students how to determine which site are the appropriate site to "visit" once a search engine search has been conducted. I constantly get ideas to enrich my lesson plans from on-line sites. I am very excited about my curren unit on the Middle Ages. I will be conducting mini units on how to use the Internet to conduct research in order to begin discovering their family origins, the meaning of their last name, and other pertinent information for creating their family tree.

One way that I ensure responsible and appropriate use of the Internet, is to constantly monitor my students when they are on line. With the family tree projects, I have a se list of appropriate web site for them to use to do their research.

My student project will be my attempt to construct a family tree. I am excited about using the new resource that I have found: a book writen for children who are interested in doing their genealogy. Web sites and templates have been provided by the author, so I am really fired up! :-)